This picture tips you off as to what it’s up to with its opening frames, wherein the Warner Bros. logo appears, '30s style, in glorious black and white. Not to worry—Heist is in glorious color, it's got plenty of cussin', and there's almost (and I do mean almost—this is a David Mamet picture, after all, and he's gone on the record about his objections to such things) a nude scene (featuring Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, of all people). But at heart, Heist is an old-fashioned caper flick about honor—and the lack thereof—among thieves, featuring charming, avuncular criminal masterminds (perfectly incarnated by Gene Hackman, Delroy Lindo, Ricky Jay, and Pidgeon) going up against more venal, not to mention foolish, operators (fireplug Danny DeVito and sleazeball Sam Rockwell), pulling off all manner of delightful double crosses along the way. Mamet's direction is more fluid than it's ever been, lending the film's set pieces—the opening jewelry-store heist and a subsequent hijacking of gold from an airport—the kind of tension that's more Rififi than House of Games. But the mind games that usually dominate such Mamet exercises are here in force—there's just more gunplay and explosives surrounding them. And since the likes of Hackman and DeVito are such distinctive performers, Mamet apparently didn't bother to encourage them to speak in that affectless tone he favors (Pidgeon, being Mamet's spouse, apparently requires no such coaching and just does it automatically, but her character is so enigmatic that the style doesn't jar), which may end up making the film as commercial a property as Mamet and company seem to want it to be.